Ive got my first batch, northern brewer caribou, thats been fermenting for 8 days now. My OG came in at 1.052 right where it was suspossed to be. Took a gravity reading today came in at 1.024. which is a abv of 3.7%. Should i expect the abv to change much if i go another week in primary? Ive seen the 1-2-3 rule on this form just wondering if theres a FG i should be waiting for.
1.024 is on the sweet side, so I would gently rouse the yeast, raise the temp to 68-70F, and give it another week at least in primary. The 1-2-3 “rule” is a vestige of the old days of homebrewing when the yeasts weren’t nearly as clean as they are now and I don’t think too many experienced brewers follow it anymore.
Shade said all the stuff I was about to so…
+1
Hey I resemble that! Seriously I used that method for years but no longer. Today secondary is used to free up a fermeter in most cases for me. Back in the old days there was a dry packet of yeast taped to the inside of the lid of a kit beer that could be who knows how old and under what conditions. It still is an easy reference to remember if you like but not needed. Just give it some more time and like Shade said give it a little rouse by gently shaking the carboy around to swirl it and warm it up a bit. Ignore it for another week or two and take another gravity reading.
Did you do an all grain or an extract recipe? Extract recipes sometimes finish higher O G than expected.
It was extract… is there any chance the the FG in will drop say .005 more in the next week to have the ABV in the 4% range?
I still plan on primary for at least two weeks total then secondary for a week or two so i can start my next batch.
If you used the Wyeast matched to the Caribou Slobber kit, that yeast takes a while to do its job. I brewed the kit a year ago and it took a couple of weeks for the main/primary phase of fermentation to finish. It started out strong, then calmed down, and after a week it was still chugging along. Other people have also noted the slow fermentation. You may want to “rouse” the yeast to wake them up, shake the carboy to get it stirred up.
This one also took a while to condition in the bottle, the flavor changed a lot over time. Good luck!
